My life, my opinions, my stories!

Hello! + LGBTQ Youtube Restriction

Making a blog has certainly been a long time coming for me! Since I uttered my first word of the English language, I was enthralled with the power of words and the impact they can have on everyone in the universe. I’m Lara. Pretty short name but I think it has a ring to it. I’m 17 (soon to be 18) and I have an intense passion for reading and writing literally anything! I’m currently studying Journalism which I’m loving so far though it’s challenging me and I reside in Sydney, Australia. I’m a generally shy person in reality, but online I am EXTREMELY open, probably because of the barriers presented online that I cannot use in real life. You cannot see me right now and that makes me feel at ease. I feel like one of my worst problems with socialising is simply that I hate being watched; I feel like everyone is pinpointing my imperfections and all that good stuff. Anyhow, lets go into a few details about what I wish to do with my blog.

With this blog, I wish to do a variety of things. I really enjoy writing about current topics, whether they be about politics, entertainment or any other topic besides sports. (Never been a sport fan besides during the FIFA World Cup). As well as posting views on certain topics, I also have travelled a lot in my time on Earth and would love to be able to write about my experiences, though they are a few years old. I’m also deeply interested in makeup and music, so I may slip a few pieces in surrounding that on this blog. I guess you could say I’m preparing to post a variety of different things. All I can say is I’m hoping people will enjoy my content as much as I love to create it.

What compelled me to start this blog up? It all started about 2 minutes ago when I leapt onto Facebook to find that there was supposedly an LGBTQ restriction in my settings. What is that, you may ask. I didn’t know either. But as I proceeded to watch other people’s videos about the new restriction, I began to grow concerned. I went to my Youtube settings, scrolled through multiple settings and could not find the part where it said “LGBTQ restriction”. At this point, I wondered if this was a hoax. But then I saw the generic restriction option at the bottom of my page and decided to test it out. I put it on and searched up Gigi Gorgeous’ “I am Transgender” video. And to my surprise, I could not find it. ANYWHERE. After turning the restrictions off, it was the first video that popped up after a quick search. My outrage at this is what caused me to start this blog. I wanted to speak out about this desperately.

Though I am not part of the LGBTQ community, I support them strongly. I don’t mind if you don’t, but I personally do. Let me explain to you why this is such a huge issue. Youtube, I presume, didn’t mean to make it seem like LGBTQ related content is “not appropriate”, but that is what it appears to look like to many viewers of Youtube and the LGBTQ community. By putting LGBTQ related content under the videos that should be restricted, Youtube is encouraging people to look at the community in a negative light. We are teaching our kids that these people are BAD NEWS and are not appropriate to be watching. The part that gets me most is that people are now going to be far less exposed to all the eye-opening stories this community has to share. Before Gigi Gorgeous or PrincessJoules, I never even knew transgender people existed! I had no idea at all! And that is because we are not taught about these people in school, no one spoke about them. Now that I have learnt from these content creators and heard their stories, I have grown to feel very strongly about their rights and the restriction on Youtube, to me, is not a bright idea. I was certainly taken aback by the news of its creation.

I can see that there are arguments for and against the restriction. Though I am against the restriction, it is clear that it could have benefits. For example, there are a lot of homophobic people in the world who are constantly taunting these Youtubers who are open about their sexuality or gender identity. By allowing them to restrict their content, there may be less hatred and negative comments left on videos made by these people. This is a great benefit, but this day in age it seems that a lot of people will follow someone they despise or disagree strongly with just so they can immediately dislike all their videos or comment horrible things. I see it a lot and it is upsetting. However, my point is that there are certainly arguments for the restriction as well as against. I can appreciate this.

Anyhow, I love hearing the opinions of others, even if it doesn’t match mine. One point I wish to make though, is that I refuse to hear an opinion from someone who conveys it in an aggressive or rude way. So I hope that this post enlightens some or simply makes someone aware of the changes on Youtube. Have a lovely day and thank you for the time you have given me (if you made it this far!)